Category Archives: Taiye Selasi

Hello and welcome back to You Wrote The Book, a book based podcast hosted by Simon Savidge. Each fortnight over the coming months he will be joined by a special guest author to discuss their life as a writer and as a reader, from the current novel they have published to the first book they read and everything in between.

In the latest episode of the show Simon is joined by debut novelist Taiye Selasi. Taiye is only on her first novel, ‘Ghana Must Go’, and already she has become an author people are incredibly excited about. This year alone she was included in the Waterstones 11 and has just been named one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists earlier this week. Prior to that her essay ‘Bye-Bye, Babar’ coined the phrase ‘Afropoliton’ and none other than Toni Morrison gave Taiye a deadline to write a short story which became ‘The Sex Lives of African Girls’ which Granta published and is now included in the 2012 anthology of Best American Short Stories.

In this episode of ‘You Wrote The Book!’ Taiye discusses ‘Ghana Must Go’ in depth – no spoilers though; how the idea arrived to her, how the characters told their tale, her journey to the book, how War affects us even when we think it doesn’t, Francis Bacon, her first (rather macabre) poem and much more…

Over the next few weeks Simon will be being joined by Alan Bradley. If you have any questions you would like to ask the author, or any feedback then you can email youwrotethebook@gmail.com or comment on twitter @youwrotethebook

If you want to hear Simon talking more books do join him every week with Gavin Pugh on The Readers Podcast, you can also find him chatting and reviewing book on his blog Savidge Reads. Until next time thank you for listening… And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes where you can find previous episodes with Joanne Harris, Patrick Ness and Maggie O’Farrell.